The hand that commits blasphemy should be chopped off

After a Pakistani boy cut off his own hand following a public accusation of blasphemy, BBC Urdu’s Iram Abbasi travelled to his village in Punjab province to find out what happened. She is the first international broadcaster to speak to him. Some readers may find the details that follow disturbing.

“Why should I feel any pain or trouble in cutting off the hand that was raised against the Holy Prophet?”

Those are the words of 15-year-old Qaiser (not his real name) who chopped off his right hand just a few days ago believing he had committed blasphemy.

Why? Because he was at a birthday party for the prophet at his local mosque, and a few hours into the party the cleric called for a show of hands from followers of Mo. The expected result was achieved. Then he asked for a show of hands from scoundrels who don’t believe Mo’s teachings. Qaiser misheard what the cleric said, and raised his hand. The cleric of course accused him of blasphemy. Naturally Qaiser went home and cut his hand off.

The Beeb has a picture of him with his bandaged stump.

He’s happy about it, or at least says he is.

“I didn’t feel any pain when I chopped it off so why would I feel any now? The hand that commits blasphemy should be chopped off,” he said, with a restrained smile.

His entire village is celebrating the act of expiation. The extreme nature of this “devotional” act has made Qaiser into a revered figure.

If he hadn’t done it? The village probably would have killed him.

That Qaiser punished himself so severely after being accused of blasphemy is unprecedented in Pakistan. But some say he may have been spared a worse fate in an increasingly conservative country, where people accused of blasphemy, or those who defend them, can end up victims of mob violence and lynching.

Well I was thinking more that he could never face having realized the mistake of choosing that religion, and if not before then, you have to figure at the point of chopping off your own hand, you’ve made a choice. Once done, he could never allow himself to not be muslim. He gave up his hand for it.

Although how terrified do you have to be not to say that you misheard someone and then go cut your own hand off?

Mind, considering certain Muslims’ attitudes toward apostasy, it wouldn’t much surprise me if, even if he _were_ to change his mind later, if he wouldn’t be in the position so many are: realistically unable ever to say so publically…

No, this isn’t saying he’s somehow better off without the hand after all, perhaps imagining he’s better off supressing _all_ doubt for this additional reason, against suffering in silenced misery, too consciously aware later of what a line he’d been sold and had once sworn to, yet still unable to speak his conscience, due to the miserably stifling situation in which he somehow must survive all the same. It’s just spitting at the whole damned misery and ugliness of it. Either way: he probably never had a realistic choice in the matter of where his declarations of faith went, _and_ is now short one hand.

usually at least the one thing you can count on is owning everything from the skin in. Hard to imagine living in a condition someone else’s ownership of you goes well within your own skin and you accept that as the way it’s supposed to be. Being inculcated to that state from birth, you are right. He never really had a choice. One probably never even occurred to him. He’s essentially relegated to the status of a pet who’s supposed to clean up after himself.

“a restrained smile”– a forced smile, trying to act at peace with this horrible mutilation that was the price of his survival.

I’m *sure* he said he misheard. Otherwise, how would the story be about the mistake being a mistake? It didn’t MATTER to people. Blasphemy was blasphemy. (I’ll give conventional Christianity an edge on this– it prioritizes intent, because god knows intentions.)

By jumping to punish himself, he both controlled the punishment, and a martyr showing his devotion to religion. He’s higher status for it.

We’ll never, ever know how much of that was a child just being naive and punishing himself for doing something he truly saw as unforgivable, and how much was a young man evaluating the frightening hole he was in and digging his way out.

It’s funny…I read the news; I listen to the news; it’s an unending litany of death and destruction; murder and mayhem. And what do I care? It’s all people I don’t know, in far-away lands: bodies and bodies and more bodies.

This kid with his hand has really reached me. I stumbled across this blog maybe a year ago, probably linked from one of the Dawkins controversies. I stayed because the analysis was so incisive. I don’t know if I can stay much longer.